Dome Cake Filled with Chocolate and Nut Cream

During the Renaissance, Italian cardinals wore small skullcaps, called zucchetti, presumably from the word zucca, meaning "squash" (the caps resembled little pumpkins). This dessert looks very much like those caps from long ago, and so the name refers to them. Many fillings can be used, but the nuts and chocolate here come closest to the original recipe, which is a Florentine classic.

Preparation

Moisten large piece of cheesecloth with water; squeeze out excess. Line 1 1/2-quart bowl with cheesecloth. Mix liqueurs and grappa in small bowl. Cut pound cake crosswise into 3/8-inch-thick slices. Cut each slice diagonally in half, forming two triangles. Lay cake triangles in single layer on baking sheet; brush with liqueur mixture. Line bottom and sides of prepared bowl with cake triangles (wet sides facing in) in sunburst pattern. Reserve extra triangles for top.

Stir 2 ounces chocolate in metal bowl set over small saucepan of simmering water until chocolate melts. Cool just to room temperature. Beat cream and powdered sugar in large bowl until firm peaks form. Fold in 3 ounces chopped chocolate and nuts. Spread half of mixture over cake, covering completely and creating well in center. Fold cooled melted chocolate into remaining whipped cream mixture; spoon into center well of filling. Cover filling with remaining cake triangles (wet side down), trimming to fit if necessary. Cover with plastic. Chill at least 5 hours and up to 1 day.

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Reviews

after making this several times, I feel I must comment. Great cake, for any occasion. ...Must tell: after having this cake at one of our dinner parties, our friend's asked me to make it as their wedding cake! ...Hmmm??? So I made 1 giant dome cake, a medium dome cake and a small dome cake, stacked them on top of one another, and yes (it was a wedding after all) I frosted it with a butter-cream in the brides colors. It turned out beautiful. Unique, and the BEST wedding cake I have ever had. This is the most versatile cake ever. And delicious. When possible stick to the original recipe.

I worked at a fine Italian ristorante that served this for dessert. We used sponge cake, which is better than pound cake. Sponge cake is infinitely better.
Also, chopped candied fruit was added to nuts for a special Christmas version--excellent!

This cake was amazing! Very easy and very impressive. I did two things different that would recomend: 1.I added some crumbled cake bits to the choclate cream centre to give it a bit more texture, 2.I froze it, then left it for a day in the fridge before serving. It made it almost like an ice cream cake, but not quite. Everyone said it was a great touch.

I've made this one several times. The first time I used the pound cake as written, which was good but I wanted it to be a little more cake-y. Since then I've done it with yellow cake I've made from a box (please, no hate letters!) and baked in a sheet pan. I also find that it's much more spectacular looking when covered with chocolate that has been melted and poured over it. Oh- and I've been perfectly happy using plastic wrap instead of the cheesecloth.

A fantastic cake! Stunning in presentation - it blows people away. One time I even doubled the size - WOW!
To help with the setting of all that whipped cream, I add a packet of Ms. Oetker's Whip Cream Stabilizer per cup of cream. I'm not sure if it actually does help in this particular case, but in all my experience this stuff is an essential to any dish where whipped cream is a main ingredient. And, the liqueor mixture for dipping the pound cake in is quite tasty on it's own!

THIS IS AN IMPRESSIVE DESSERT FOR A DINNER PARTY!!I make this dessert often,using Grand Marnier as the liqueur.I feel any liqueur would do.Also I dont't mess with melting the chocolate and making the "tunnel" down the middle. instead of hazelnuts which I couldn't find I use the same amount of toasted sliced almonds,roughly chopped.I agree that layering some leftover pound cake in the middle is a great idea...gives the dessert more substance. I can't recommend this dessert enough.Don't be put off by the instructions,it's not as complicated as it first appears. Every time I make this I get "oohs" and "aahs" from guests. My favorite dessert.

I first made this for an Tuscany-themed meal, and now a year later one of those guests still raves about it! Now his birthday is coming up and I know exactly what to make. With the cream filling, it is a refreshing summer dessert, and doesn't take too much effort.

I made this for my father's birthday and everyone in the family was very impressed! Big Italian family--tough crowd! It was very simple to make. I used an Entemanns pound cake. Didn't have any of the liquours listed, so I just used Amaretto and some maranchino cherry juice. Worked fine--I think you can be pretty flexible with the liquor. Also, I didn't have a cheesecloth, so I crossed my fingers and used 2 large sheets of saran wrap. Worked great!!! I don't know why you would need a cheesecloth... I made the filling exactly how it was listed. It was absolutely delicious. Mine differed from the picture only because my pieces of cake were smaller, so there was a tiled effect that looked pretty. Despite its ease to prepare, this is actually a nice cake for a celebration or for company. Try it!

This cake is delicious, pretty, quick, easy, different, and impressed the heck out of my family! I used all hazelnuts (I was out of almonds) and substituted Frangelico, creme de cacao and cognac for the suggested liqueurs, as I dislike fruit flavors and chocolate together. But this recipe is so versatile (and forgiving) you could fool around with it a lot. I accidentally let the melted chocolate cool a bit too much so instead of blending with the second half of the filling, which probably would've looked gorgeous, it separated into firm little blobs similar in size to the chopped chocolate in the filling. Didn't matter -- the cake was inhaled by my family. Would be a terrific cake to make in the summer when you don't want to heat up your oven. I used a frozen Sara Lee poundcake (thawed, of course) and got twenty slices out of it, which was exactly enough coverage for the bowl I used, which was about an 8-cup size.

Agree with the writer above that the cake needed a ganace to really finish it right. FYI, I cut the slices the wrong way, but still managed to get the cake to stay together, using the ganache as a "glue". The mosaic pattern on the cake was nice, prior to adding the ganache.

This cake was really quite easy to make although mine looked nothing like the picture. Mine ended up with a mosaic pattern since I used a small pound cake. This can be a beautiful dessert if the pattern of the cake "tiles" is carefully laid out. I also used a bowl that was too big, so I created a second layer of cake in between the two types of cream. That balanced out the cream, which would have overwhelmed the dessert if I had filled the whole bowl with it.

THIS PASTRY FILLED CAKE IS BEATIFULLY ASSEMBLED AS WELL AS VERY FLAVORFUL. HAVE WORKED WITH IT MANY TIMES WITH DIFFERENT LIQUORS AND DIFFERENT NUTS. ALSO MADE A PAIR OF THEM FOR A GRADUATION PARTY FOR MY SON AND HIS FRIENDS, WENT OVER VERY WELL, HIS GIRLFRIEND WAS JEALOUS. WILL BE MAKING THEM AGAIN FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

Excellent dessert! I served this to my in-laws as a birthday cake and it was a hit. I topped it off with a chocolate ganache and it really made it! I would definitely make it again for a special dessert.

This cake was excellent. Everyone in my family loved it. I baked my own pound cake, but if you use a Sara Lee pound cake or other purchased one this recipe would be very easy. I poured a dark chocolate ganache over the top and drizzled a white chocolate ganache over that to make a pattern and it looked beautiful. People even asked for the recipe.